Fire guts rooming house near U District

No injuries, but several displaced

Fire officials said they cannot determine the cause of a blaze that gutted a rooming house Sunday and destroyed a backyard storage shed in a neighborhood north of the University District.

Almost immediately after firefighters arrived, questions arose from the neighborhood crowd gathered to watch the action about whether the fire was intentionally set or if the rundown condition of the house was to blame.

Investigators believe the source of the fire could have been a candle, fireworks, smoking materials or a lamp. But not enough evidence pointed to any source, so the the official cause is undetermined and the investigation is complete, Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said Monday.

"There's no reason to believe it was suspicious," she said.

As many as 11 low-income residents may have been displaced by the fire, which broke out about 3:20 p.m. at 6418 Brooklyn Ave. N.E. No one was injured, although tenants feared they lost all their possessions in the flames.

The house is listed as having four bedrooms, but had been made into small apartments, with most of the rooms converted into units.

Yolanda Wilson, 52, was one of the tenants who heard what sounded like rain hitting the roof. She peered out her top-floor window and saw the storage shed engulfed in flames.

"It was like a huge orange ball of fire," said Wilson, who had just moved in this month with her son. "From the window I could feel the heat."

Tenants said it appeared that the fire spread from the shed to the home. But fire officials at the scene weren't so sure.

"It would be pretty unusual for a fire to leap that far. That's 30 feet or so," said Seattle Fire Battalion Chief Bruce Amer.

Damage was estimated at about $130,000, Fitzpatrick said.

A resident four blocks away reported hearing an explosion when the fire started. As firefighters blasted the roof with water, thick gray smoke wafted over a crowd of bystanders on Northeast 65th Street.

The house's owner, Hugh Sisley, has owned dozens of properties within a few square blocks in the Roosevelt area, including the two houses on either side of the one that burned.

Sisley has, in at least some cases, rented houses to one primary tenant who sublets out rooms to six, seven or eight low-income people, according to previous news reports.

Several rumors circulated about the fire's cause, including one that a former tenant in another building had threatened to set fire to one of the homes, said Anthony Narancic, the house's property manager for the past two years.

He'd also heard that transients had been sleeping in the storage shed, although he was never able to catch anyone. The shed contained an old sofa and lawn mower that might have contained some gasoline, he said.

He's had no major problems with tenants or the house, he said.

Firefighters looped the home and two neighboring properties, which Sisley also owns, with yellow cordon tape. Two sheds in the adjacent yards were blackened by the blaze.

So many people packed into the old homes raises some concerns about fire safety, said Ed Grant, a military veteran who lives in another home Sisley owns.

"Someone's going to die here eventually," he said.

In the attic, firefighters discovered damage from a previous fire, although they did not know from how long ago, said Amer, the fire battalion chief. He said someone had installed new roofing and sheetrock over the charred wood instead of replacing everything.

Narancic said the properties are maintained. He said Sisley has "good solid character" and is a "good guy."

The house was the site of an unusual raid in 1999, when health inspectors -- apparently afraid of the home's property manager at the time, Keith Gilbert, a self-avowed white supremacist -- brought Seattle police officers, guns drawn, to tag along on their search for rats. The home's renters were herded into a room and ordered to sit on the floor. They later sued the city and lost.

Gilbert, 66, was found guilty last week of federal weapons charges, including seven counts of possessing a machine gun. He has been behind bars since early 2005, according to court papers.

Jim O'Halloran, president of the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association, said his group is now trying to work in a more friendly way with Sisley. He said getting Sisley's various homes fixed up is the group's highest priority.

"Many of them are not well-maintained; it's no secret," he said. "We are eager for redevelopment of his properties, and so is Hugh."

O'Halloran said the homes have been maintained slightly better since Gilbert stopped managing them and Narancic took over.

The American Red Cross had representatives at the fire to find shelter for displaced tenants.

Narancic said he knew of nine people living in the home. But some tenants said there were as many as 11.

Jeffrey Evenson, 54, lived in a basement unit in the home. He heard the fire crackling and thought it was a hailstorm. When he saw the flames, he helped alert other tenants and escaped in his light blue bathrobe and wool socks.

He had been sleeping before the fire, trying to recover from what he suspected was food poisoning from some bad spinach, he said.

Wilson, who also escaped from the fire, said she and her son, Vashawn Wanzer, 30, just bought a new futon, television, stereo and clothing for their apartment inside the home.

"We're just watching everything we owned burn up," she said, pointing to the smoke pouring out around her second-floor window.